TY - JOUR AU - Baker,Michael AU - Fortin,Nicole M. TI - Occupational Gender Composition and Wages in Canada: 1987-1988 JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 7371 PY - 1999 Y2 - September 1999 DO - 10.3386/w7371 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7371 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7371.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Michael Baker Department of Economics University of Toronto 150 St. George Street Toronto, ON M5S 3G7 CANADA Tel: 416/978-4138 Fax: 416/978-6713 E-Mail: baker@chass.utoronto.ca Nicole Fortin Vancouver School of Economics University of British Columbia #997-1873 East Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 Canada Tel: (604) 822-3222 Fax: (604) 822-5915 E-Mail: nifortin@mail.ubc.ca AB - The relationship between occupational gender composition and wages is the basis of pay equity/comparable worth legislation. A number of previous studies have examined this relationship in US data, identifying some of the determinants of low wages in ``female jobs'' well as important limitations of public policy in this area. There is little evidence, however, from other jurisdictions. This omission is particularly disturbing in the case of Canada, which now has some of the most extensive pay equity legislation in the world. In this paper we provide a comprehensive picture, circa the late 1980's, of the occupational gender segregation in Canada and its consequences for wages. The sample period precedes many provincial pay equity initiatives and thus the results should provide a baseline for the evaluation of this legislation. We find that the estimated wage penalties in female jobs in Canada are generally much smaller than the estimates for the United States. Although there is some heterogeneity across worker groups on average, the link between female wages and gender composition is small and not statistically significant. ER -